


When You Kiss Me Like This

by jupiter23



Category: Strange Magic (2015)
Genre: F/M, Friends to Lovers, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-10
Updated: 2016-07-10
Packaged: 2018-07-22 17:37:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7448056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jupiter23/pseuds/jupiter23
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on a Tumblr prompt. Bog manages to talk his best friend Marianne into going to the Spring Ball with him in an effort to get Griselda to leave him alone about finding a girlfriend. He hadn't counted on his feelings for said best friend joining them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When You Kiss Me Like This

**Author's Note:**

> I don't use Netflix, so I don't know if Jurassic Park is available there or not, but just in case it's not, we're going to pretend it is. 
> 
> Also, I don't own the song used in this fic.

“Mum, no, I--…… _seriously?_ I really _don’t_ \--……….Mum, I’m telling you--………… _Jesus, Mum--_ ……..alright, fine, see you then.” Bog let out a snarl as he ended the call with his mother and immediately fisted his hand around his cell phone before he gave in to the urge to throw it over the balcony railing and into the street below.

God knew he loved his mother, but damn could she be infuriating! He’d long ago lost count of the number of times he’d tried to tell her he just wasn’t interested in dating or having a relationship. Especially after…well, that didn’t matter now. The problem was she seemed to have made it her sole mission in life to find him a girlfriend despite his protesting.

It was bad enough that she had nagged him into going to the annual Spring Charity Ball this city held every year for the rich and elite of the area that he hadn’t actually wanted to go to and had tried his best to get out of, but now she had just finished telling him about these women she had plans to introduce him to while he was there. The evening was already shaping up to be a bad one, and it was still over a day away.

Bog dug his pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and lit up another one, taking a long drag as he slumped down on the nearby bench. He laid his cell phone down on his waiting jacket and prayed it wouldn’t ring again. Then he threw one arm over the back of the bench and stretched his long legs out in front of him, crossing them at the ankles. His day had been busy enough, and all he’d wanted was a few minutes of fresh air and peace before he went back in to finish his day. Then Griselda had called. His head fell back and he squeezed his eyes shut, his fingers massaging at his temple. He could feel a serious tension headache building.

“If you don’t mind my saying, you look like hell.”

Bog looked up at the sound of her voice. No matter how terrible his day was, Bog could always count on Marianne to make it better with her presence alone.

The two of them had met a little over two years ago when her father’s company had branched out into this city and needed office space to work in. As Bog’s company didn’t need _every_ floor of the high-rise building he owned, Bog was renting the space out to them. Marianne managed this branch of it, and from what she had last told him about it, they were doing extremely well, despite what those stuck-up old men on her father’s board of directors thought of a woman’s ability to run anything.

Marianne herself was a force to be reckoned with. They hadn’t exactly gotten along with one another initially. And then one evening after the both of them had had to stay late, Bog was in the parking garage and had nearly made it to his car when he heard the sounds of yelling coming from further down the lane. He had gone to investigate only to find Marianne screaming at a blond guy he had never seen before. When he’d intervened and asked if everything was okay, Marianne had snapped that everything was fine, and the blond guy only glared at him wordlessly before getting in his own car and speeding off.

But Marianne had been too angry to drive after that, so Bog took her down to a bar that was within walking distance of the building for a drink and to give her time to calm down. While there, he had learned that the blond guy was her ex-fiancé Roland, and she had felt well within her rights to yell at him. Marianne had caught him cheating on her and had called off the wedding, and he was still trying to get her to take him back. It was only being made worse by the fact that her father, who didn’t know why she had suddenly cancelled the wedding, had been pushing for her to get back together with him.

Bog had then shared the story of the woman he had loved who just up and left him one day with no warning and no explanation, and how his mother kept pushing him to get back out there, but how he felt the same way she did. The whole idea of love was nothing but trouble, and they had both agreed they were better off without it. They had become friends after that.

Since then, their friendship had grown, apparently to the point where everyone around them was convinced they were actually dating in secret. And that was nothing less than irritating to both Bog and Marianne. Really, why couldn’t a man and a woman simply be friends with one another without everyone assuming there was something going on between them?

(Truth be told, and Bog would die a horribly painful death well before he would ever admit it to anyone, but he did actually have feelings for Marianne. _Serious_ feelings. She was smart, funny, beautiful, and seemed to understand him in a way no one else did. Sometimes he had a hard time believing that she actually even wanted to be friends with him. He wasn’t about to go and ruin that by acting on his feelings for her, though. And most certainly he would never let on to anyone that he even had them, because that was the last thing either of them needed.)

Bog pulled his jacket over, making room for her on the bench as she approached it, shrugging out of her own jacket on the way and opening her bottle of Coca-cola. Marianne wasn’t a smoker, but she also liked to come outside when she needed a break. She and Bog had just started joining one another one day, and Bog had had no idea when it had happened. It just felt so natural to do so.

“Thanks,” he said as she sat down and took a swig of her drink. He took another drag from his cigarette.

Marianne studied him for a moment. “Uh oh, that’s the ‘I just finished talking to my mom’ face. So what’s going on now?”

Bog snorted out a laugh. He had gone on so many rants about his mother and her constant nagging that Marianne had become an expert in all the signs by now. So he told her about the conversation he had just had.

Marianne winced in sympathy. “Ugh. My condolences,” she said. If anyone understood his irritation, it was her. Even though her father had long ago gotten off her back about Roland, he had graduated to her finding a boyfriend almost to the same level that Griselda was trying to find him a girlfriend. “You sure you don’t want me to just call you with a fake emergency at some point?”

“I’m sure. The plan is still to stay long enough to be seen and then make my escape as soon as I can,” he answered. That was usually how he wound up handling being dragged to these things. Or he tried to, anyway. It nearly always failed more often than not.

Bog was finishing his cigarette when his phone lit up with a new text message. When he saw that it was from his mother, he almost ignored it. But curiosity got the better of him, and he opened the message…

…and then spat out a curse.

And then Marianne was plucking his phone out of his hand before he really did give in to the urge to throw it.

The message had contained pictures of the women his mother had been talking about. Why she had felt the need to send them along he couldn’t begin to understand. But it didn’t help his mood. It was starting to look like he wouldn’t be making an easy escape from this party, either.

While Marianne put his cell phone out of his reach, he dropped his spent cigarette butt into the nearby ashtray and lit another one.

Marianne patted his shoulder. “The fake emergency offer is still on the table. I promise, I’ll make it a really good one,” she said.

Bog had been about to decline again when he suddenly had an idea. He pulled his cigarette out of his mouth, exhaled the smoke, and then looked over at Marianne, who had gone to take another sip of her Coke.

“What are you doing tomorrow night?” he asked.

Marianne froze, the edge of the bottle resting on her lips. Then her face morphed into a suspicious glare, her narrowed eyes drifting over to him. “Why?” she answered.

“Well, if I showed up with a date…” he began, a desperate smile on his face.

“Aww, _Bog_ —“

Bog threw up his hands defensively. “I know, I know! You hate the Spring Ball! But I swear, half an hour and we’re out of there!”

Marianne only glared silently at him.

“I’ll give you a hundred dollars?”

She arched an eyebrow.

“Okay, pizza and Netflix are on me for the next month.” Surely she wouldn’t turn down an offer of not being responsible for paying for their regular Friday night get-together.

Her expression didn’t waver. Damn.

Bog’s shoulders slumped and his hands dropped. “You know, I’m not above begging at this point.”

Finally, Marianne clenched her eyes shut, drew in a breath through her nose, gritted her teeth, and let out an impatient growl. “Get us out in twenty minutes and you have a deal,” she snarled.

Bog sighed in relief and smiled. “You have my word. Twenty minutes, not a second longer.”

“And you can start repaying your debt as soon as we get out of there.”

Bog drew an X over his heart. “At my place, and whatever you want to watch.”

Marianne sighed in defeat and held out her hand. “Deal.”

Instead of shaking her hand, Bog took it in both of his and pressed a grateful kiss to her knuckles. He could have sworn Marianne’s cheeks flushed at the action. “You have no idea how much this means to me, Tough Girl.”

“You’re a pain in the ass sometimes, you know that?” She was chuckling despite the sentiment.

“Can’t forget,” he said, snuffing out his cigarette and discarding it in the ashtray. “You tell me all the time.” Marianne returned his cell phone to him as he stood and put his jacket back on.

“Yeah, yeah. You better have _Jurassic Park_ ready to go. And I want all four movies.”

Bog made a face. “I’ll pick you up at 7:30.” With that, he left the balcony and returned to his office. And tried to ignore the way his hands were tingling from the contact with hers. 

It wasn’t until he was behind the closed door of his office that it registered with him that he had just asked Marianne out on an actual date. Or did it count as a date? It couldn’t be a date, they were just friends. And she was just helping him out. That was all it was.

Wasn’t it? 

 

Bog didn’t stop debating whether this was a date or not for the rest of that day and into the next. A business-related problem that took Marianne out of the office had come up, so Bog didn’t see her that day. It wasn’t like seeing her would have brought him any closer to an answer, anyway.

Now here he was on his way to her apartment to pick her up, and he still couldn’t decide whether this was a date or not. In fact, the argument raged in his head right up through him arriving at Marianne’s door and her sister, Dawn, enthusiastically answering it.

Dawn hadn’t leaped on him with one of her near-tackling hugs she normally liked to give him, which he guessed he could attribute to the tuxedo he was wearing and her penchant for not wanting to do anything to mess up nice clothing, but she did drag him in by one arm.

“Marianne, Boggy’s here! And he looks _hot_!” Dawn yelled towards Marianne’s room. Bog winced both at the sound level of her voice and at her calling him hot. From the moment they had met, Dawn didn’t seem to find anything wrong with the way he looked, and Marianne had once told him as much. But Bog wasn’t an idiot; he knew he wasn’t a looker. And being referred to as attractive still made him uncomfortable.  At least Marianne had the grace to pick up on that and drop the subject not very long after it first came up.

“Dawn, leave him alone!” Marianne yelled back.

Dawn snorted and rolled her eyes. “Well, he does, so hurry up and get out here!”

In an effort to ignore the flush he could feel creeping to his face, Bog looked around the room. Dawn’s boyfriend, Sunny, was still seated on the couch, and it looked like the two of them were settling in for their own movie night. Sunny shot him an apologetic smile and a wave of greeting. Bog barely had time to wave back before Dawn’s full attention was back on him.

“Bog, I gotta say, I’m glad you _finally_ asked Marianne out on a date,” she said.

Bog looked at her in horror, but could only sputter incoherently.

“Dawn, how many times to I have to tell you, it’s _not_ a _date_?!” Marianne fussed, finally appearing from her bedroom, her shoes in one hand. And Bog froze at the sight of her. She was dressed in a floor-length amethyst colored ball gown that he guessed was made of satin. Her eye shadow and lipstick matched the dress, and the dark shade of the eye shadow made her golden-brown eyes seem to glow.

It took Bog a few seconds before he registered that the sisters were still arguing.

“Oh, yeah? Well, if it’s not a date, then why did you spend so much time getting ready?” Dawn countered. Marianne glared at her and opened her mouth to retort, but Bog knew if he didn’t jump in and say something, they’d spend half the night arguing over the matter.

“Because it’s black-tie formal and if she doesn’t at least look like she made an effort, they won’t let us past the gate,” Bog answered. Marianne gave him a grateful look, but Dawn didn’t look satisfied. Thankfully she decided to let it drop.

She did, however, give out a horrified gasp when she saw his hands.

“What now?” Marianne asked as she worked her shoes onto her feet. Bog looked at his hands to see if he could find what might possibly be wrong with them. Nope, nothing there except for his keys.

“Bog, you didn’t bring her a corsage!” Dawn exclaimed.

“I…what?” Bog said in confusion.

Marianne rolled her eyes. “Dawn, this isn’t the prom. And it’s not like we’re staying that long, anyway.”

Dawn snorted in exasperation. “I still can’t believe you’re planning to leave after a few minutes. What’s the point in going at all?”

Bog had opened his mouth to answer her, but Marianne, her shoes now in place, caught his gaze with hers and shook her head. He took that to mean she had already tried explaining to Dawn with no luck at all. His wouldn’t be any better.

“Because it’s us,” he chose to say instead. This earned him an annoyed glare from Dawn and an unsuccessfully-suppressed smile from Marianne.

“What he said,” Marianne said, reaching over the back of the sofa and grabbing the duffle bag containing her change of clothes for after the ball. “We’re off, then. Don’t wait up.” With that, she and Bog headed for the door.

“Have fun! Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!” Dawn called after them as Bog shut the door behind them and ushered Marianne down the hallway before she could shout anything back at her sister.

 

People were still walking in by the time Bog and Marianne arrived. Bog considered it a blessing; they’d draw the least amount of attention that way. All they had to do after that was find his mother so she would know he had showed up. Then they could find somewhere to hide for the next fifteen or so minutes before sneaking out. If nothing else, he was determined to keep his promise to Marianne and get them out of there as soon as possible.

Bog parked his car in the parking lot near the building. This function offered valet parking, but if they were going to make a quick getaway, he didn’t want to take the chance of someone seeing them while they were waiting for his car to be brought around. Once they were out of the car and walking towards the entrance, Bog held out his arm to Marianne.

It was a testament to how well he knew her that he was completely ready for her response. She stared at his arm for a few seconds and then looked back up at him, arching an eyebrow.

Bog rolled his eyes. “You know as well as I do that my mother will never let it go if I don’t do this.”

“You’re racking up a serious debt with me, you know that?”

“Yeah, yeah, drinks are on me too. Now would you take my bloody arm already?”

Marianne huffed in annoyance, but took his arm. He could have sworn she was fighting back a smile, though.

They arrived in the ballroom a few minutes later. Barely anyone spared them a glance as they walked in, which again suited Bog just fine. Though the setting sun was still shining through the mullioned windows and open French doors that were spread across three of the four walls, the room itself was brightly lit by crystal chandeliers. It was also crowded with people milling around, greeting one another and already drinking wine and champagne. Marianne and Bog immediately began looking around for Griselda. The sooner they found her, the better.

Fortunately Griselda found them first. Bog took it as a good sign that she had found them so soon. Maybe they could actually be out of here in ten minutes rather than twenty. Griselda left the three younger looking women standing in a group as she made a beeline for him.

“Bog, sweetie, there you are! Come over here, I’d like you to meet—“ Griselda cut off as soon as she saw Marianne on Bog’s arm. It was another second before it registered that Bog had brought someone with him. Bog knew when it had, because her lips spread in a delighted grin. “Oh, are you two officially seeing one another now?! It’s about time, I’m so happy for you!”

Bog opened his mouth to set his mother straight (and likely would have started World War Three on the subject) when a light pinch on his arm from Marianne stopped him.

“Yes, Griselda, I’m here with Bog tonight,” Marianne said cordially. Bog looked down at her and had to work to keep the smile off of his face. He owed Marianne even more for that one.  

“I have to tell you, I’m so glad! I always thought you two looked cute together!” Griselda gushed. Bog glared at his mother, but she didn’t appear to notice. She had Marianne by her other hand and was patting it graciously.

Marianne’s fingers tightened almost painfully on Bog’s forearm, but the expression on her face was carefully being maintained at polite thankfulness. “Well, Griselda, it was nice to see you again,” Marianne said, “but we did only just arrive, so if you’ll excuse us…”

“Oh, yes, you two go mingle before the dancing starts. By the way, I expect to see the two of you out there at some point tonight,” Griselda said.

“Will do!” Marianne chirped with a smile that didn’t quite meet her eyes. She and Bog then worked their way through the crowd away from her.

When he glanced back over his shoulder, his mother was already working her way back over to the three young women she had been chatting with earlier. No doubt to disappoint them. Oh, well. As if he could be bothered to care. His mission had been accomplished, as far as he was concerned.

Marianne led them through the nearest French double-door onto the patio that led to the facility’s gardens. They stopped once they were outside the doors, and Bog finally felt like he could breathe again. The sun was nearly gone and stars were beginning to appear in the sky. Marianne dropped his arm, and the two of them glanced back into the room. No one seemed to notice they had gone outside.

Then they glanced over to one another and burst out laughing.

“I’m—“ Bog snorted, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes, “I’m sorry about that.”

“Don’t be, I’m just glad that’s over as fast as it was!” Marianne managed through her giggles. “How long did that take, by the way?”

Bog pulled his cell phone out of the inside pocket of his jacket and checked the time. “Six minutes, give or take a minute,” he told her.

“Do we attempt an escape now, or give it another minute?” Marianne asked, looking around. No one inside still appeared to have noticed them nor made any attempt to join them. Bog took a look around himself. At the last Spring Ball that he’d actually had to stay the entire time for, people had started to work their way out into these gardens about an hour into it. He knew because when people had started wandering out there, that had been his escape route then. Only that time it had taken him almost an hour and a half to shake his mother and the women and girls she kept trying to introduce him to and get him to dance with.

It appeared luck would be with him tonight, though. The music hadn’t even started up yet, and although the crowd had been silenced by whomever was playing host this year welcoming them all to the event, no one had noticed them.

“Now,” Bog answered, “before we—“

“—And now, ladies and gentlemen, leading us all in the first dance of the evening is,” the announcer suddenly cried out, interrupting Bog.

It was still a hard lesson Bog needed to learn that hesitation tends to cost a person. For right at that moment, a spotlight that had scanned around the room for a moment suddenly landed on himself and Marianne.

Fuck.

Fuck fuck fuck.

Bog and Marianne both froze. This had to be a bad dream. He would wake up in bed to his alarm clock and be able to shake the whole thing off as he dressed for work. 

“—This happy couple right here!” the announcer finished, and the crowd erupted into cheers and applause. Griselda then appeared out of seemingly nowhere to grab them both by the hand and pull them back into the ballroom.

A long string of swear words started streaming from Bog’s mouth while Marianne glared daggers at everyone and everything around them. Then Griselda was giving them both a shove towards the dance floor.

“I’m going to kill you,” Marianne growled, her voice promising to do exactly that. “I’m going to kill you so hard…”

Bog grabbed her hand and pulled her the rest of the way to the dance floor. “Let’s just get this over with so we can go,” he growled back. She seemed to agree with him, because she put up no resistance as he led her to the middle of the dance floor.

As they reached the middle of the dance floor, the opening strains of Toby Keith’s “ _You Shouldn’t Kiss Me Like This_ ” started. 

“ _Really?_ ” Bog huffed in exasperation at the music. Marianne looked ready to spit fire. _Of fucking course_ the song they’d be forced to dance to would be a love song. And it’d be a country song, at that.

~ _I've got a funny feeling_  
The moment that your lips touched mine  
Something shot right through me  
My heart skipped a beat in time~

“Let’s get it over with, right,” Marianne said, resigning herself to their fate.

Bog sighed. “Right.”

Their hands slid into position on one another, her hand on his shoulder with one of his on her waist, their free hands clasping each others’. Then he led her in the dance.

  _~There's a different feel about you tonight_  
It's got me thinking lots of crazy things  
I even think I saw a flash of light  
It felt like electricity~

Their dancing started out somewhat stiff. Bog was pretty sure it was obvious to anyone looking that neither one of them wanted to be out here doing this. But then Marianne met Bog’s eyes. “You never told me you were such a good dancer,” she commented.

He could feel his cheeks warm up, but he would swear to anyone looking that it was from exertion and not embarrassment.

“I—I never really thought I was,” he said. “Just passable at best.”

 _~You shouldn't kiss me like this_  
Unless you mean it like that  
'Cause I'll just close my eyes  
And I won't know where I'm at  
We'll get lost on this dance floor spinning around  
And around and around and around~

“Well, you’re more than ‘just passable’ in my opinion,” Marianne said, and Bog could feel his blush deepen. He was probably smiling, because Marianne offered him a slightly shy smile in return. Then he noticed that she was also blushing. Bog told himself it was just from her dancing. The only times he had seen Marianne’s face get red like that was in anger, and generally it wasn’t directed at him.

 _~They're all watching us now_  
They think we're falling in love  
They'd never believe we're just friends  
When you kiss me like this I think you mean it like that  
If you do baby kiss me again~

Bog had no idea when it was he had stopped noticing the crowd watching them, but it seemed that gradually all of his attention was on Marianne. She had started to relax into the dance, and if he was reading her right, she didn’t seem to be paying attention to the crowd anymore, either. Then, for some reason, he started considering the song’s lyrics.

 _~Everybody swears we'd make a perfect pair_  
But dancing is as far as it goes  
Girl you've never moved me  
Quite the way you moved me tonight  
I just wanted you to know  
I just wanted you to know~

Bog still didn’t think that he and Marianne constituted anything in the way of a cute couple. For that matter, they weren’t actually a couple. This was only to get Griselda off of his back for a little while. She was just his best friend and she was helping him out tonight, that’s all this was.

Wasn’t it?

He suddenly didn’t know anymore.

 _~You shouldn't kiss me like this_  
Unless you mean it like that  
'Cause I'll just close my eyes  
And I won't know where I'm at  
We'll get lost on this dance floor spinning around  
And around and around and around~

Well, getting lost he certainly had. Only Marianne had never kissed him. With how he actually felt about her, he had certainly thought about it. And also more than kissing her. But never when she was around. God, no. After what she had been through, he would never put her through anything like that. Falling in love with her was off-limits, he reminded himself. He firmly ignored the way that thought twisted his heart.

What he couldn’t ignore was the way Marianne’s eyes had darkened as he swept her around the dance floor.

No, he had to be imagining that. She didn’t want him that way.

 _~They're all watching us now_  
They think we're falling in love  
They'd never believe we're just friends~

Yes, they were just friends. That’s all this was. And all it would be.

But why did he want something else so badly? And why did it look like her face was mirroring his thoughts?

He was imagining that, too. Projecting on to her or something like that. He swore he was going to google a psychiatrist as soon as they left.

But right then, he spun her out in a twirl. When she came back in, their eyes met.

 _~When you kiss me like this I think you mean it like that_  
If you do baby kiss me again  
Kiss me again~

They didn’t move again as the song ended. Except for her to raise her face to his, her beautiful golden-brown eyes going darker if possible. Then they were moving towards each other and her eyes were drifting shut, and their lips were a hairsbreadth from one another—

\--and the crowd reminded them of where they were by erupting into wild applause.

The both of them jerked away from one another. Bog actually took a step back while Marianne blinked rapidly. Then suddenly, Marianne grabbed him by the hand and was practically dragging him away from the dance floor as other couples filled it for the next song.

She didn’t stop until they were well into the gardens and didn’t drop his hand until they had ducked behind a manicured hedge wall. They both simultaneously put their backs to it, and Bog realized he had been holding his breath. He slowly let it out.

“I think it’s time to get the hell out of here,” he said a touch breathlessly, looking anywhere but at Marianne. He felt rather than saw her nod in agreement.

“Lead the way,” she murmured. Bog didn’t need any more prompting. He quickly led them through the gardens and out of the nearest gate that led off of the venue’s property.

They didn’t speak again until Bog pulled onto the road and was driving them away from the ball.

“Would you, ah, like me to take you home?” Bog asked her tentatively. He carefully kept his gaze on the traffic in front of him.

“You owe me, remember?” she reminded him, but her voice sounded far away. He chanced a glance at her to find she was staring straight ahead, but she didn’t seem to be looking at the road.

“Right,” he said.

 

The rest of the drive back to his house was in silence. Bog was grateful for it, and he had the feeling Marianne was too. He needed the time to think.

The problem with that was that his brain had not stopped moving at a million miles a minute. Just what had all of that been about? Had _he_ actually been about to _kiss_ her? Had _she_ been about to kiss _him_? Was it a mutual thing? Was this his mother’s fault for putting ideas in his head? Could it be blamed on the song?

Bog was still arguing all of this over with himself as they arrived back at his house and Marianne grabbed her bag off the back seat. Once inside, she went to his bathroom to change out of her dress and wash off her makeup while he sent off the order for their pizza and signed into his Netflix account.

He was still arguing it all over with himself as he had a cigarette and then went into his bedroom to get out of his tuxedo and into his track pants and t-shirt. When he re-emerged, Marianne had grabbed a couple of beers out of his refrigerator and started the movie. Then their pizza arrived, and they ate in continued silence, sitting on opposite ends of his couch.

Finally it seemed Marianne couldn’t stand it anymore. They had finished eating and their beers had only been partially drank. On the screen, the storm had started up and the tour vehicles had just broken down in front of the Tyrannosaur enclosure.

 _“Just what the HELL was that all about?!”_ Marianne suddenly shouted, slapping her hands down on the couch and causing Bog to nearly leap off of it.

“Jesus Christ, Marianne!” Bog swore. When his heart rate slowed back down, he asked the question. “What the hell was _what_ all about?”

Marianne glared at him. “You know what I’m talking about! That fucking dance! The fact that you almost kissed me!”

Bog glared back at her. “Um, I’m pretty sure _you_ almost kissed _me_. And what was wrong with ‘that fucking dance’? You told me you thought I was good!”

“And that’s what I’m talking about! Where the hell do you get off being so God damn good at dancing, anyway?”

“My mother made me learn when I was younger! It’s not like I can help it now!”

“Oh, God,” Marianne moaned, raking her hands through her hair and slumping back into her seat on the couch. “You know your mother is never going to believe we’re not actually seeing one another now.”

“Bloody hell, you’re right,” Bog said in horror. Among everything else racing through his mind, that hadn’t occurred to him. Bog fell back into his own seat. “And she probably took about three million pictures of us and posted them all on her Facebook page by now.”

Marianne blinked once, then a second time. Then she scrambled for her phone. He didn’t bother watching her. He already knew what she’d find when she brought up her Facebook feed.

Sure enough, as the queen of Isla Nublar tore her way free of her cage and roared her presence out on his TV, Marianne squeezed her eyes shut and turned her face away from him, holding her phone towards him. Bog knew he shouldn’t look, but he did anyway.

 _Of bloody fucking course_ his mother would have a picture of _that_ moment front and center of her status update. The moment he and Marianne had almost kissed.

And it already had nearly a hundred likes.

“Holy shit,” Bog spat out under his breath as he pushed Marianne’s phone back towards her. She tossed it onto the coffee table in front of them right as it lit up with a text message, presumably from Dawn. Marianne ignored it.

“Fuck me sideways,” she muttered angrily. Then she let out a defeated sigh. “So, seriously, what did happen back there?”

Bog pinched the bridge of his nose between his forefinger and thumb. He’d be going in search of his aspirin soon, he just knew it. “I don’t know,” he answered truthfully. “I—I just—I don’t know.” He wanted to crawl under a rock.

He could hear Marianne shifting awkwardly on the other end of the sofa. He sighed in defeat himself and looked up at her. She had drawn her knees up and wrapped her arms around her legs. Her eyes were directed at the TV, but she was staring through it. He averted his own gaze.

“Look, I’m sorry. For whatever that was that _did_ happen,” he said.

“You don’t need to be,” she said quietly. “I—I actually—“ she stopped to clear her throat, and her voice came out in a near whisper, “I…actually…wouldn’t have minded…”

Bog froze. Was he hearing her right!? “Wouldn’t have minded…?” he prompted.

“If—if you had, you know…gone through with it…” her grip tightened around her legs. “Kissed me, I mean…”

There was no way Marianne of all people had just said that. He looked at her again, wide-eyed and slack-jawed. She was studying her knees now and her face was bright red. Bog couldn’t seem to find his voice.

He was still staring at her, unblinking, when she suddenly surged up off the couch with an aggravated scream, her hands raking through her hair again. “AAAAAUUUGGHHH WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ME WHAT AM I SAYING FORGET I SAID ANYTHING!!!”

Bog stood up slowly. He felt like he was in a daze. “Marianne…”

“OF COURSE YOU DON’T THINK OF ME THAT WAY I’M AN IDIOT TO EVEN THINK YOU MIGHT FEEL THAT WAY ABOUT ME SO WHAT THE FUCK AM I TALKING ABOUT?!?!?”

“Marianne…” It felt like Bog wasn’t even in control of his own body anymore as he moved towards her.

“I CAN’T BELIEVE I JUST RUINED THE BEST FRIENDSHIP I’VE EVER HAD BY GOING AND FALLING IN—“

But Bog cut off her tirade by tilting her face up towards his and catching her lips in a soft kiss. Marianne went completely stiff with shock. Then Bog realized what he had just done and immediately tore his mouth away from hers, his face flushing.

Marianne stared up at him for a second, and then another.

“Marianne, I’m sorry, I—“

“Bog?”

“Aye?”

“Shut up.” And then Marianne was pulling him down and his arms were coming up around her and then their mouths were crashing into one another’s and their tongues were colliding with each other. Then he was lifting her up to him and her legs were winding around his waist.

And it was far more than Bog could have ever hoped for.  


End file.
